THE PRODUCTIVITY PARADOX
For all the talk of AI-driven productivity, hard evidence remains thin. Global productivity has not accelerated significantly despite billions of dollars in automation spending. According to OECD, labour productivity growth has been weak since generative AI tools became publicly available in 2022, hovering at 0.4 per cent across OECD economies excluding Türkiye in 2024.
Much of what AI delivers so far is substitution, not transformation – replacing routine human tasks rather than amplifying human potential.
Consider customer service bots that frustrate users and escalate complex issues back to humans, doubling workloads rather than halving them. Or schools where students use ChatGPT to draft essays, only for teachers to spend twice as long verifying authenticity. Even warehouse robots require teams of technicians for oversight and maintenance.
As MIT economist David Autor notes, new technologies often reshape jobs rather than eliminate them. AI excels at prediction, but humans remain indispensable for judgment, empathy and context. Used wisely, AI can complement human capability; used rashly, it merely shifts work around without creating real productivity.
SUSTAINABILITY, THE MIRROR IMAGE OF AI
There is another global phenomenon unfolding in parallel – the pursuit of sustainability. It is the mirror image of the AI story.
Sustainability is slow-paced and often under-rewarded in markets. The benefits of cleaner air, resource resilience and intergenerational fairness unfold over decades, not quarters. Unlike the AI boom, sustainability struggles not from excess hype but from insufficient urgency.
The true challenge is to channel the ingenuity of AI toward sustainable outcomes rather than speculative ones. Imagine using AI to optimise urban cooling systems, predict flooding or monitor energy efficiency across housing estates. These are not headline-grabbing moonshots, but quietly transformative uses of technology that create genuine public value.
If the AI bubble channels capital into sustainable innovations, it may yet prove a blessing. But if it inflates valuations detached from environmental or social outcomes, it will repeat the mistakes of past market meltdowns.